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Fingerling potatoes with herbed butter make any meal feel special, and no one needs to know how easy this recipe was to make!

On busy evenings, you don’t want to have to sacrifice taste for convenience, and this easy fingerling potatoes recipe is just the dish to round out your supper without adding much cooking time. The best part? Since this dish cooks in the microwave, you can serve your potatoes in the same bowl that you used to melt the butter, which means less cleanup!

Herbed butter might sound like it’s difficult to make, but with the help of your microwave it comes together in seconds. Adding herbs also means that you can get more flavor with less fat!

Need some simple recipe ideas to serve as the main course with these fingerling potatoes? Try one of these:

Adding potatoes to the mix helps lighten up favorite holiday recipes without sacrificing any of the richness.

Potatoes are a healthy addition to your holiday recipes. One potato with the skin on has just 110 calories and 45 percent of your daily requirements for vitamin C. Potatoes also do a good job of filling you up without filling you out, partly because skin-on potatoes provide eight percent of your daily recommended fiber.

On top of their health benefits, potatoes are a great food to help reduce the cost of your holiday recipes. They’re one of the most inexpensive items in the produce aisle, so they help you stretch your holiday food budget a little bit further.

Discover the creative side of potatoes with this mix of traditional and not-so-traditional holiday recipes!

Ramps are wild onions. If you can’t find these at your grocery store, green onions work as a replacement. They give this dish a mild, oniony flavor. This salad makes a healthy side dish with roast chicken or pork. Image Source: MyRecipes.

Pot pie is an easy, inexpensive, one-dish meal to make holiday cooking a breeze. This holiday recipe is kid-friendly and even easier to make with the help of your microwave to cut down on cooking time.

Is your refrigerator full of leftover turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes? Eat ’em up with these clever Thanksgiving leftover recipes.

We hope that you had a happy and delicious Thanksgiving this year and got to stuff yourself on turkey with all of the trimmings. Do you feel like you can never look at another plate of stuffing or cranberry sauce again? These leftover recipes use your extras in some surprising ways that you’ll love even if you’re over Thanksgiving food!

1. Shepherd’s Pie

Shepherd’s pie can use quite a few of those Thanksgiving leftovers. Follow this recipe, but use chopped leftover turkey in place of the ground beef. Top with mashed potatoes or even mashed sweet potatoes, and you can replace some of the vegetables with green bean casserole.

2. Potato Taquitos

Instead of making the mashed potatoes in this recipe, just add the cheese to the potatoes left over from Thanksgiving supper. You can follow the rest of the recipe exactly or add roasted vegetables or chopped turkey to include even more Thanksgiving dishes in this meal.

3. Turkey Potato Empanadas

Morgan at Host the Toast came up with this recipe to spice up turkey and mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving. If you’re running low on mashed potatoes, you can also use mashed sweet potatoes in this zingy recipe.

4. Turkey and Stuffing Casserole

This convenience recipe is even more convenient when you have turkey and stuffing in the refrigerator already. If you have roasted vegetables or a green bean casserole left over, you can use those in place of the vegetables the recipe calls for.

5. Sweet Potato Biscuits

Leftover sweet potato casserole works perfectly in place of the mashed sweet potato and buttermilk in this recipe. Instead of one cup mashed sweets and 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, substitute 2 1/2 cups sweet potato casserole.

6. Turkey Pot Pie

Of course this recipe is great for using leftover turkey, but you can also use green bean casserole or roasted veggies in place of the peas in this filling pot pie. If you served roasted potatoes, you can dice those up instead of using raw potatoes, and add them closer to the end so that they don’t overcook.

7. Potato Cakes with Fried Eggs and Turkey-Red Pepper Hash

You can even create Thanksgiving leftover recipes for breakfast. This recipe uses mashed potatoes, turkey, and gravy for a hearty after-Thanksgiving breakfast.

8. Thanksgiving Leftovers Wrap

Combine your leftovers in a whole grain or spinach tortilla, and wrap them up burrito-style. Try layering on mashed potatoes, a little bit of cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing, and even a bit of gravy. You can also serve this on bread.

What are your favorite Thanksgiving leftover recipes? Tell us in the comments!

Mashed potato and sweet potato recipes are Thanksgiving staples, but what’s the history of these unmissable dishes?

It turns out that neither mashed nor sweet potatoes made an appearance at the first Thanksgiving table in 1621. In the centuries since that historic meal, though, they’ve become essential parts of Thanksgiving dinners.

The History of Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes

Could you imagine Thanksgiving without sweet potato pie now? The first Thanksgiving most likely had plenty of pumpkin, but not a sweet potato in sight.

The first Thanksgiving took place in Massachusetts, where sweet potatoes don’t typically grow. Native Americans did eat sweet potatoes, but that was mostly in the southern part of the soon-to-be-United States and in South America. It’s much more likely that the guests at that first Thanksgiving table ate ate pumpkin pie instead of sweet potato pie.

Sweet potatoes became part of the Thanksgiving tradition more than 150 years later. The first pumpkin pie was actually developed in France in 1653, and it wasn’t in any American cookbooks until 1796. Sweet potatoes grow very well in the warm, humid south, and pumpkin pie began to showing up alongside (or instead of!) pumpkin pie on the Thanksgiving table in the years after that.

Mashed Potatoes: A Thanksgiving History

When it comes to Thanksgiving, sweet potatoes are the star of the show, but no Thanksgiving meal is complete without a big bowl of creamy mashed potatoes.

Mashed potatoes became an American staple in the 1700s. Potatoes are a native North American food that are easy to grow, filling, healthy, and affordable. As far back as 1747, Americans were mashing up potatoes with butter, milk, salt, and cream, and dishing them up on the Thanksgiving table.

Today, Americans continue to enjoy potatoes and sweet potatoes with their families on Thanksgiving each and every year. And we’re quite proud of that! Happy Thanksgiving!

These baked sweet potato skins are a healthier take on a traditional sweet potato casserole. Most sweet potato casseroles use peeled sweets and plenty of butter. Our Thanksgiving recipe is lower in fat, but just as satisfying. The best part? Unlike most sweet potato casserole recipes, this one uses healthy sweet potato skins. Why does saving the skins make this recipe healthier? There’s a lot of nutritional value in those skins, so when you can, leave ’em on, and eat ’em up!

One sweet potato with the skin on is a tasty treat that’s packed with nutrition. It’s got four grams of fiber, two grams of protein, and over 400 percent of your daily value for vitamin A. Not too shabby for a little orange spud! Your family will love these single-serving stuffed sweet potatoes so much that they won’t even notice that you snuck a healthy Thanksgiving recipe into the spread.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes can help you create healthy and delicious Thanksgiving recipes that your family will love.

Whether we’re talking soups and casseroles or appetizers and sides, potatoes and sweet potatoes are a staple at the Thanksgiving table. They’re versatile, easy to cook with, and – maybe best of all – kid-friendly.

We’ve rounded up some simple Thanksgiving recipes to help you with all of your holiday meal-planning needs.

Soups and Salads

Thanksgiving dinners can be on the heavy side, but with the help of healthy potatoes and sweet potatoes, you can lighten them up.

Creamy Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup – The best part of this soup? It’s actually better if you make it in advance. That means less cooking on Thanksgiving day! Just pour it into a pot on the day-of, and turn on the stove to warm it up.

Cauliflower Herb Soup – This creamy soup packs a punch of healthy veggies! For a vegetarian version, just use vegetable broth in place of chicken and leave out the ham.

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes – Save even more time and make this recipe even healthier by choosing thin-skinned potatoes like our Gold Jubileez, and mashing them with the skins on. You can cook them in the microwave in a fraction of the time.

Lentil Walnut Loaf with Sweet Potatoes – A veggie loaf is a filling main dish for your vegetarian and vegan guests. Even the omnivores at the table are going to want a slice of this, so make sure you cook enough for everyone!

Seitan Pot Roast – Seitan is a vegan meat substitute made with wheat gluten, and you can find it at many health food stores. This recipe roasts with potatoes and other veggies in a rich gravy.

Desserts

Of course, no Thanksgiving meal is complete without something sweet to top things off. Here are some healthier versions of traditional Thanksgiving dessert recipes.

Sweet Potato Pie – Your guests will never guess that this is a lower-fat version of the Thanksgiving classic.

Sweet Potato Pound Cake – Sweet potatoes replace some of the fat in this pound cake recipe without taking away from the richness.

Do you have any favorite Thanksgiving recipes? Share yours in the comments!

July 4th is on Thursday, and that means firing up the grill! We’ve been talking about grilling a lot around here lately, but what fun is summer if you don’t cook lots of food outside over an open flame? No fun, that’s what!

This Independence Day, treat yourself to an grilled feast with plenty of healthy, hearty potatoes. Not only do potatoes bring a healthy dose of vitamin C to the table, but they’re a budget-friendly vegetable to flesh out your July 4th menu. That’s important if you’re planning a big ol’ cookout!

Also, remember that PotatOHs are a great shortcut to getting your potatoes ready for grilling. Throw them in the microwave and they’ll be cooked in just 4-7 minutes, cutting down grilling time and letting you enjoy more time with friends and family.

We’ve rounded up some of our favorite potato sides, so no matter if you’re grilling a meat or veggie dish, there’s a great potato recipe to go with it. Enjoy!

Steak or Pork

Balance out that heavy sirloin or pork chop with some lighter side dishes. Here are a few to try:

Did Father’s Day sneak up on you? It’s coming up this Sunday, June 16th, and what better way to celebrate dad than with a delicious, hearty Father’s Day meal?

We love papas around here, and we don’t just mean dads. Papas is Spanish for potatoes, so bust out those tasty spuds and get ready to put together a mouth-watering Father’s Day feast! Cooking for dad can be a little bit tricky, but we’ve got you covered with a fancy spin on some down-home fare that’s perfect for papa.

Dad’s usually the one manning the grill, so for Father’s Day why not give him a break and show off your own grillin’ skills? If you’re new to the grill, don’t worry. Just one of the dishes below is grilled. The rest you can prep in advance, so you can spend time with dad, not in the kitchen.

Instead of a full-on, sit-down situation, we’ve picked out a menu that dad can eat with his hands, so he can munch on good food while doing what dads do best: playing with his kids. We’ve even picked out some beer pairings for you that will knock dad’s socks off!

Father’s Day Starters

Festive Papas Tapas: Think of this as potato bruschetta. Instead of slices of bread, pile your ingredients onto thin slices of potato for a gluten-free treat. And since potatoes don’t get soggy like bread slices do, you can make these a day in advance and just pull ’em out of the fridge for an instant appetizer.

Baked Jalapenos Poppers: Jalapeno poppers are normally deep fried, and dad will devour this oven-baked version without ever missing all of that extra grease! Prep and stuff these a day or two ahead of time, so all you have to do on Father’s Day is pop ’em in the oven.

Beer Pairing: Start things off light with a wheat beer, like Hefeweizen.

Father’s Day Main Course

Sliders: Instead of full-sized burgers, pile up a heap of miniature sliders that dad can munch with one hand. You can make the patties and prep the cheese, veggies, and buns on Saturday, so all you have to do is grill those burgers and assemble on Father’s Day.

Sweet Potato Oven Fries: Nothing goes with a burger like some fries. Just like the stuffed jalapenos, you make these fries in the oven. You can blanch and season your potatoes a day ahead, so all that’s left is baking. Pro tip: the jalapenos bake at 325F and the fries say to cook at 400F, but you can make the fries at a lower temperature, just cook them longer – check on them every few minutes until they look done. Your fries are ready when they’re a little bit browned on the edges.

Are you planning a Cinco de Mayo shindig? Potatoes are a big part of Mexican cuisine, and they pair beautifully with traditional Mexican spices. We’ve rounded up some our favorite festive recipes to help you celebrate right!

The fifth of May is the anniversary of the Mexican army defeating the French in 1862, and it’s actually not a big holiday in Mexico. Here in the U.S., though, we love to celebrate with Mexican-themed fare, and of course plenty of frosty margaritas.

But sometimes we can overdo it on Cinco de Mayo, so balance out those margaritas with a good-for-you spread of healthy potato recipes! Check out our healthy Cinco de Mayo menu, along with a bonus recipe for our tangy (totally not healthy) margarita!

Appetizers

Kick things off with some tasty crowd-pleasing starters! If you’re not doing a sit-down shindig, you can just serve these appetizers as finger foods, so your guests will have something festive and healthy to munch on between cocktails.

The Main Event

Cinco de Mayo is on a Sunday this year, which means you can celebrate with a yummy brunch. We’ve got a few main course options for you, so whether you go brunchy or for more standard fare, we’ve got you covered!

April Fool’s Day is here again, so we figured there’s no better time to pull back the truth on the top five potato myths that have countless people fooled—maybe even you.

After all, there’s plenty of chatter going on about how these tasty spuds aren’t all they’re cut out to be, but we bet you’ll be surprised how much of it is certifiably F.A.L.S.E.

Okay, let’s dig right in to our first slice of potato fiction, shall we?

Myth #1: Potatoes are high in carbs, which means they’ll make you gain weight.

First of all, carbohydrates have an unfairly bum rap. In reality, we all need carbohydrates to live. They’re the primary fuel that our muscles burn to keep us active, and they’re the ONLY source of energy utilized by our brains. And despite what advertisements or fad diets claim, carbohydrates can’t be blamed for extra inches to your waistline.

Fact is, clinical studies show there is no association between potato consumption and obesity.1 These aren’t some fat-laden, processed food. They are a nutrient rich vegetable that—yes—has carbohydrates, but that doesn’t mean they’ll up the number on your bathroom scale. Potatoes can actually be a fantastic addition to any weight management program as they’re highly satisfying and jam-packed with nutrients and filling fiber. Now there’s some food for thought.

Myth #2: Potatoes have a high glycemic index (GI).

This one’s easy because the numbers don’t lie. The GI of potatoes is highly variable, so this whole “Potatoes always have a high GI, so I’m steering clear” thing is totally unreasonable. The glycemic index is not a set property of a food but rather depends on a variety of different factors, including processing and preparation; variety, origin and maturity; and the addition of other macronutrients (protein, fat and fiber). For example, the GI for potato varieties range from a low of 56 for a boiled Pontiac potato grown in Australia to a high of 111 for a baked U.S. Russet Burbank.2 Myth disproven? Yeah, we thought so too.

Myth #3: All of potatoes’ nutrients are found in the skin.

Wrong again. There are countless potato lovers who insist that peeling a potato reduces the nutritional value to next-to-nothing. But the truth is, the only nutrient that’s significantly lost when you peel a potato is fiber (you’ll go from about 2g to 1g after peeling). The good news is that the majority of a potato’s valuable potassium and vitamin C are found in the flesh.

Myth #4: Sweet potatoes are healthier than white ones.

For this particular myth, it all comes down to prep and perception. First off, white potatoes are commonly consumed in a highly processed form, like French fries for instance, while sweet potatoes tend to be enjoyed in a more natural state. Of course this discrepancy makes a difference to the nutrition value of a dish, but we can’t credit that to the potatoes themselves, but rather the preparation method and added ingredients.

What’s more, there is very comparable nutrition between sweet and white potatoes, but it’s just focused on different things. For instance, where sweet potatoes have more fiber and vitamin A, white potatoes have more iron and magnesium. So it’s really more of a tradeoff than a competition.

Myth #5: Potatoes are just empty calories.

We’re going to keep this one short simply because this idea is just downright ridiculous. Yes, potatoes are starchy, but that doesn’t mean they have nothing more to offer than calories. The average unpeeled spud is actually incredibly nutrient dense with 3g of protein, 620mg of potassium, 2 g of fiber, 45% DV of vitamin C, 10% DV of vitamin B6, plus ZERO sodium, ZERO fat and only 110 calories. Case closed.

So, we hope that helps clear up some of the untruths surrounding spuds these days. Next time someone brings up one of these potato myths, you can tell them they’re full of sprouts! Happy April Fool’s Day!

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Recent Comments

MJsays: "These recipes look great, but for the lazy person, I'm going to add my own. It is the stuffed baked potato.
Bake your potato until it is soft, using the oven or microwave.
Cut in half, and scoop out the middle and mash it. Add in about 1 teaspoon of prepared mustard and mash again. It should have a smoother texture. Stuff back into the potato shells. Sprinkle with paprika. If you are doing several, you may wish to re-heat. Voila. Totally simple. Now, I am going to experiment with adding nutritional yeast and soymilk, to see if it comes out a bit cheesy. So pleased to see these recipes."

PotatOHsays: "Susan: that's wonderful! Thank you for your insightful comment and we are so glad that you enjoyed our PotatOHs!"

Susan Hendersonsays: "I love your products. I am a Vegan and potatoes are a wonderful part of my diet. I also find that the growth and harvest of this healthy root crop is actually beneficial to the planet! I won a box of your potatoes last year and used them to the fullest. Thank you, Susan Henderson"

Dorian Shafersays: "I love potatoes & will never stop eating them. There great for lunch, i pop one in microwave. Baked are my ultimate favorite & yes i eat the skin. Red i don't peel for anything. There amazing by themselves. Potatoes are a great source of energy & great anytime !"